For nearly three decades, the wild, remote coastline of far east Victoria was the backdrop to an Australian family's endless summer. For author Kate Mildenhall, the annual pilgrimage to a cherished campground on Gunaikurnai and Bidwell land was a sacred ritual, a place where life's most significant moments unfolded. That all changed on one fateful night in December 2020, when bushfires swept through, consuming not just the landscape but a lifetime of memories.
The Rhythm of an Endless Summer
The journey from Melbourne was a seven-hour rite of passage, its rhythm ingrained in the family's DNA. Stops at Nar Nar Goon, Bairnsdale, and Cann River were unbreakable traditions. Finally, they would turn onto a corrugated dirt track, slowing to cross the bridge into the Thurra River campground.
Mildenhall recalls the sensory immersion of the place: the tea-coloured tannin of the Thurra River winding through high reeds, the sound of children diving from the old bridge, and the vast expanse of Bass Strait at the river's mouth. The air carried the tang of saltwater and the heady scent of flowering coastal tea tree.
As a teenager in December 1996, she drifted on the edges of a gang of kids, not yet knowing that two long-limbed, tree-climbing girls would become her lifelong best friends. The campground was the stage for her first summer crush, learning to play cards, and mastering the clutch of a car on sandy tracks.
A Lifetime of Milestones in the Dunes
Major life events consistently pivoted around this coastal sanctuary. In 1999, fresh from finishing Year 12, Mildenhall, her sister, and those two friends saw in the new millennium from the top of the nearby lighthouse.
A few years later, she introduced a bearded boyfriend to the spot. Though not a natural camper, he fitted in. Five years after that, he led her to the beach before the tarps were even pitched and proposed with the words "Will you marry me?" written in the sand.
The tradition deepened and expanded. Dinner times became riotous events for up to 30 people around the campfire. A new generation was baptised into the camping ways. In the summer of 2011, a heavily pregnant Mildenhall waddled around the site, determined not to miss a year. Her babies became toddlers there, learning to ride bikes under mahogany gums.
The Night the Summer Ended
In the hot, airless December of 2020, the family had just one perfect day—campsites set up, ocean swims done—before the order came to evacuate. A fire was racing down the coast towards them.
The beloved campground burned that night. The devastation was absolute. The kids' bikes were melted into the ground. The family's camping trailer was reduced to a blackened husk. While everyone escaped safely, the bridge was lost, and with it, the accessible heart of their endless summers.
The family has returned since, sneaking past fences and crossing the broken bridge to wander, speechless, among the burned and abandoned campsites slowly being reclaimed by the bush. They camp elsewhere now, in magnificent and wild places, but none are this place.
Yet, hope remains. Kate Mildenhall holds onto the belief that one day they will return, cross the bridge, and feel the sand between their toes once more, as if they have finally come home. Her story is a powerful testament to the deep connections Australians forge with the landscape, and the profound sense of loss when it is violently altered.
